popper wrote:pancakes3 wrote:+1, i'm not offended by popper's posts, so much at frustrated at the lack of substance or argument. it's a lot of dancing around the subject.
at least Nate makes it known that he legitimately believes that fertilized eggs have souls or whatever.
I found this article to be interesting and substantive. Your thoughts?
https://unherd.com/2022/07/ideology-has-poisoned-the-west/
I think this is another example of you dancing around the subjects raised (DeSantis being bad, the SCOTUS decisions being bad, Republican platforms being bad, etc.).
I think the linked article is poorly written, poorly reasoned, and full of handwaved assumptions and assertions presented as fact.
Some specific criticisms:
- it's a disingenuous use of the word "ideology" to use it as a "technocratic" ideal that "transfer[s]... sovereignty from the body of citizens to an unelected overclass" because (a) having subject matter experts as "unelected" officials in a republic is not undemocratic - those officials are placed by democratically elected leaders; and (b) the entire point of having subject matter experts work on our behalf is not only demonstrably the better form of government but the central thesis of a republic, so that citizens don't have to take time away from their lives to be involved in the business of managing the government.
- I don't see how the author can square "schoolchildren are indoctrinated with identity politics" while also going off on the horrors of supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion. is the alternative of having professors who don't support diversity, overtly show favoritism to students based on race, gender, class, or ideology the preferred alternative? how does that combat students being indoctrinated? if borders are thrown open, then immigrants won't be "illegal" and what policy advocates for immigrants to enjoy privileges and benefits not extended to citizens? what is this person even talking about? where is the substance in these hypotheticals? what is the logic? the author simply states that "no sensible person would want to find out." I for one am curious what the f*ck he's talking about.
- It's disingenuous for the author to compare the state of modern liberalism with the atrocities of the holocaust and stalinist pogroms.
- re: mute coercion. "We see this today in the insistence that certain widely-shared opinions that were uncontroversial only a few years ago are so morally illegitimate that they do not deserve a hearing." And what opinions would that be? interracial marriage? gay marriage? boys will be boys, and sometimes grabs a p*ssy or two? say it out loud, author. what are you talking about?
"We see it in the fact that those who publicly voice such opinions are commonly smeared, hounded, denied financial services, investigated, and fired." Is this comparable to those who suffer those consequences, and worse, by the basis of their race and sexual orientation? Again, say it out loud, author. Who is he talking about? He links to 2 articles, one where an "independent news outlet" had its paypal account frozen for taking in money tax/fee-free under the guise of fundraising, and distributing it to its management's personal accounts, in violation of paypal's terms of service, and another where a princeton professor was fired for having an affair with one of his students. truly, a stifling of free speech.
- he stumbles across some examples of totalitarian regimes rejecting members of the learned class - Nazi's who who lost out on a quarter of their physicists due to them being Jews, Stalin firing, imprisoning, and executing biologists for being "bourgeois-capitalists" and Mao doing the same. This is in direct conflict with his central thesis that ideologies are used as a technocratic method of transferring power from the people to those with subject matter expertise, to the point, where I literally do not know what he's talking about.
- something something "gross incompetence" of the Biden administration, something something major disaster. Which again, I don't understand the author's point. He takes great lengths to say that the West is being poisoned by this, and yet also takes great lengths to demonize China, who are decidedly not the West. So what exactly is poisoning "the West?" A political philosophy that's been in place since before there was even an America? The idea that there shouldn't be subject matter experts in the halls of power? But there also should? But also Biden is bad. But the world's covid response is also bad because it takes the word of scientists and ignores the will of the people? No opinion (or facts cited) as to whether the will of the people to ignore the advice of scientists was actually a democratic majority or not?
It's just a jumbled mess of half-researched wikipedia regurgitations, and right wing rhetoric. Devoid of facts, figures, logic, or any other neutral measuring sticks of coherent argument.
In summary, I don't know what point Mr. Howland is trying to make. I really don't. I can guess at it, but i don't want to guess at it. The substance and logic of the arguments should be self-evident and stand on its own merits. I don't see any substance, or logic in this piece. I'm not even sure what the broad assertion is, even if not backed by substance or logic. Do you?
Postscript: Ah yes. I remember the University of Austin now. It's not an accredited University, only launched last year with approximately 80 students, no campus, no degrees offered, and is technically just a nonprofit and cannot brand itself as an actual institute of higher learning with a .edu web domain.
